Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men. It is the music of a people who will not stand for this kind of diva-on-diva violence. Over 500 members of the Broadway theater community released an open letter calling for “accountability, justice, and respect” in light of Patti LuPone’s comments about fellow Broadway actresses Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald. The signatories, including familiar names like Wendell Pierce and Lewis’s Hell’s Kitchen co-star Maleah Joi Moon, aver that LuPone’s language against these fellow Broadway stars “is not only degrading and misogynistic — it is a blatant act of racialized disrespect. It constitutes bullying. It constitutes harassment.”
In case you’ve been living under a Paris Opera House, what you need to know is that LuPone has been receiving criticism from the theater community after she called Lewis a “bitch” and said that McDonald was “not a friend” in The New Yorker. The comments are in response to a video Lewis posted to Instagram last November addressing a viral moment where LuPone called the Alicia Keys musical Hell’s Kitchen “too loud.” (Over the course of the article, she also calls diners at a restaurant too loud and gets angry at a Jumbotron, saying, “Don’t tell me how I should feel.”) Lewis felt LuPone’s words were racially microaggressive and “rooted in privilege.” McDonald supported Lewis in the Instagram comments with emojis. LuPone dug herself into a much deeper hole in the interview when she scoffed at Lewis calling herself a Broadway “veteran,” dismissing her experience. Lewis, age 59, has been working on Broadway since 1985.
The writers of the letter state that it is not meant to “shame or isolate” and it “is not about ‘canceling’ anyone or condemning them,” writing that “this is about more than one person. it is about a culture. A pattern. A persistent failure to hold people accountable for violent, disrespectful, or harmful behavior — especially when they are powerful or well-known.” The letter then asks the American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League to take immediate action by not welcoming LuPone at the Tony Awards on June 8. “Participation, recognition, and attendance at high-profile events must be contingent on conduct that reflects community values. This includes completion of comprehensive anti-bias or restorative justice programs before re-entry into public-facing spaces.”
LuPone is not nominated for a Tony this year, but McDonald is for playing Momma Rose in Gypsy — the very role that won LuPone her second Tony in 2008. It’s unclear how the awards show will address this War Paint–level feud. While we await a response from the American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League, we at least are left with a new question to ponder: Who would win in a fight? Over 500 members of the Broadway theater community or onePatti LuPone?
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